


The Lamb And The Knife

by dear_monday



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 12:17:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6374476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/pseuds/dear_monday
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rowan Lynch, who likes hard liquor and fast cars and a dust-colored girl called Ada Parrish. Josephine Kavinsky, who dreams of a world where Rowan Lynch wrecks her Mitsubishi instead of Gansey's precious Camaro, then makes her a new one. And Ada Parrish, whose whole damn life has been an endless string of dirty jobs.</p><p>A series of fem raven boys character studies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Long Shadows, Gunpowder Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings for non-graphic violence, canon character death (also non-graphic), references to domestic abuse and spoilers for all books up to and including _Blue Lily, Lily Blue_.** Thanks to [southernreaches](http://southernreaches.tumblr.com), [outrunningthezombies](http://outrunningthezombies.tumblr.com) and [deanghostchester](deanghostchester) ♥

Rowan Lynch in an Aglionby sweater and pleated skirt, Rowan Lynch with a raven on her shoulder and a lit cigarette between her teeth, Rowan Lynch kissing her rosary, Rowan Lynch in a muscle shirt and a turbocharged BMW.

Hail Mary, full of grace.

Rowan Lynch likes hard liquor and fast cars and a dust-colored girl called Ada Parrish. She wants to dream pretty things for Ada, but she knows Ada wouldn't take them - not from Rowan, not from anyone. Besides, Ada isn't that sort of girl. Ada Parrish's nails are always short and never painted and she smells like dirt and motor oil. But Ada has a way with cars; she's the only one who can make Richelle's Camaro sing. And there it is, the heart of it all: Ada fixes things. Rowan breaks them. Rowan Lynch drinks too much and starts fights and crashes cars but she'd be so gentle with Ada Parrish if Ada would only let her.

Blue Sargent says all Aglionby girls are bitches, and that doesn't change when she meets Richelle Campbell Gansey III. It does change, however, when she meets Ada Parrish. Ada Parrish and Blue Sargent sit side by side in a helicopter and don't so much as hold hands, and Rowan holds her tongue and averts her eyes. That night Rowan Lynch picks a fight and sends a man twice her size to the emergency room. _You need to be able to do this just as well as Declan, girl_ , Niall told her, once upon a time. _Maybe even better. Hit me again_. Afterwards, Rowan climbs through the window of Ada Parrish's double wide with a fat lip and bloody hands. Ada lets her in and doesn't say a damn word, and Rowan wants to say _this isn't how it was supposed to be_ and she wants to say _I'm sorry_ but she never lies, so she doesn't.

A week later, Robert Parrish lays his hands on his daughter for the last time. Rowan breaks his nose, and two of his teeth, and three of his fingers, and four of his ribs. It takes three small town cops to pull her off him. Niall is as good as there with Rowan, the devil on her shoulder, the holy ghost. Rowan's face looks even more like his when she's angry. He was a crook, but he would have died before he hurt Rowan. And of course, in the end, he did.

Come Sunday, Rowan kneels beside her brothers and crosses herself with her aching hand and presses her bruised mouth to her rosary. Sometimes, she dreams that she's praying and wakes up clutching little statuettes of the virgin. They all have her mother's face. Rowan keeps them in a cardboard box under her bed.

Blessed are you among all women.


	2. Holy Water, Gasoline

At Aglionby, Rowan Lynch is a bitch and a dyke and she doesn't care who knows it. Josephine Kavinsky is a bitch and a dyke and she doesn't tell a soul. Quietly, hopelessly, desperately, Josephine Kavinsky loves an Irish girl with knuckle tattoos and a mouth like a gun. They get high together in the back of Josephine's Mitsubishi, fast dangerous girls in a fast dangerous car, and Josephine wants to kiss Rowan but she knows she never will. Josephine Kavinsky couldn't care less about skinny, dusty Ada Parrish but she hates Richelle Campbell Gansey's fucking guts because she doesn't know what she's got, doesn't know she's got what Josephine would trade anything for.

Josephine Kavinsky dreams of a world where Rowan Lynch wrecks her Mitsubishi instead of Gansey's precious Camaro, then makes her a new one. Josephine Kavinsky dreams of a world where Rowan Lynch chooses her instead of Richelle Cambell Gansey.

Josephine tries to dream herself a Rowan Lynch of her very own, and wakes up holding its hand. The forgery looks perfect but it's a poor substitute, methadone for heroin. Josephine always knows what it's going to say. It's some of Josephine's best work, but even Josephine's best isn't good enough to recreate the internal clockwork of the creature that is Rowan Lynch. Josephine gets rid of it, sits it in a gleaming Mitsubishi with no steering wheel and doors that don't open and blows them both to kingdom come with forged fireworks. She doesn't try again.

(One lazy afternoon when both of them are drunk and high and hungover and heartsick all at once, Rowan tells Josephine that she always wanted to dream herself another Niall, but she never knew how. Josephine laughs but doesn't smile. _Don't waste your time_ , she says. _It can't be done_.)

She never does kiss Rowan Lynch and she takes her secret to the grave.

 


	3. A Means, An End

Ada Parrish knows a dirty job when she sees one. Ada Parrish's whole damn life has been an endless string of dirty jobs, a lump of coal for every nasty, shameful thing she's done to survive. She looks at her chapped, callused hands sometimes and wonders if it's too late, if the stain it's left on her is permanent. Every time, she promises herself that she's going straight, demanding better, and every time she finds herself backed into another corner. It cuts her down, little by little, the shame and the ugliness of it. She feels lessened, in a way that not even desperate Gansey or sleepless Rowan or poor, dead Noa or even Blue, all wrapped up in her family's love, will ever understand. Means to an end, she tells herself, means to a fucking end. She thinks the words over and over again like her mind is needle wearing out the groove in an old record.

Ada Parrish works three shitty, menial jobs that grind her down hour by hour. It's a means to an end. It's her ticket to Aglionby and the whole world at her feet. Ada Parrish lies to her mother and father about the money she's making, risking ugly marks that lead to uglier questions. It's a means to an end. It's the only way she's ever getting out. Ada Parrish runs her tongue over her teeth to make sure they're all still there and says _I want to press charges_. Means to an end. Means to an end. It's ugly and messy and Ada can't think straight through the sick numbness of her deaf ear but they need Rowan and somehow, horribly, Ada has the power to keep her with them.

Ada Parrish sacrifices her most prized possession - herself - to Cabeswater. It's a means to an end. They need to wake the ley line or there will be no sleeping king, no royal favor, no golden ticket. Ada Parrish chips away her precious time to mend the line. It's a means to an end. One day, surely, Cabeswater will finally be at peace and the violent, frightening visitations will stop and Ada will be able to sleep again.

Ada Parrish draws up the blueprint for Greenmantle's trap. It might have been Rowan who forged the evidence, but Ada is the architect of the thing and she knows it's all over her hands too. It's a means to an end. Rowan is the knife and Ada is the hand that holds it and once again it's Ada that ends up covered in blood. Ada Parrish sits in the courthouse with Gansey and Rowan by her side, but she's the only one whose hands are dirtied by it. It's a necessary evil, but isn't it always? That's the worst part, that no matter how carefully she lays her plans, no matter how hard she works, she always finds herself back here. Means to an end. Keep her father away, so that he can't hurt her anymore. Keep Rowan out of prison, so she can't hurt anyone else.

Ada Parrish lies in bed in her tiny apartment over St. Agnes and stares at the watermarked ceiling and thinks about Glendower, words chasing around her head like leaves in the wind. All the things she wants, shiny and plastic and cheap compared to what it is that they all need. Glendower's favor for Gansey, a king's mercy for a princess' life.

 A means to an end.


End file.
